


Absent and Overbearing (1967)

by fabfemmeboy



Series: Immutability and Other Sins [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13033383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabfemmeboy/pseuds/fabfemmeboy
Summary: Burt had never been a smart man, but he liked to think he knew just enough to be a decent one.





	Absent and Overbearing (1967)

**Author's Note:**

> Back during Light In The Loafers, someone had asked about how Burt came to be accepting enough to treat Mrs. Jones like a person at a time when that wasn't the norm, and though I had a bit more backstory it didn't seem like the right place to share it. This CBS special, though, just cried out for a reaction from our favourite tv dad. If you ever have spare time and want to bash your head against a wall, you should google it and try to watch bits that exist on the internet. Good times.

It was nearly 9:30 when Burt pulled into the garage. In the old days, that would have been late - Kurt would have been waiting impatiently, wanting to at least get to tell his dad about his day for a few minutes before being shooed off to bed, and Mrs. Jones would have barely been able to get home in time to put her own to bed. But those days were long gone now, and the garage was as empty as it had been the past three nights when he'd come in after dark. He slid out of the front seat of the truck, the thud of his boots and slam of the door echoing off the concrete. Burt frowned, shook his head, and shrugged; not much he could do about the quiet now.  
  
He trudged in through the kitchen door and stooped to untie his boots, loosening only the first two eyelets before toeing the things off and nudging them against the wall with his stocking foot. He paused a moment to flick on the light and padded toward the living room but hesitated as he saw a note sitting on the kitchen table. Leaning over to look closer - though easier to read it from this distance than up close. He swore up and down he didn't need glasses - he shrugged out of his jacket as he read.  
  


> Hi honey! Marjorie's daughter had an emergency so she had to watch her grandkids, and Ann's out sick, so they called me in to work the night shift. There are leftovers in the fridge. Hope to see you at breakfast!

  
  
He hated how hard she worked. Well- he wanted to clarify that. He admired her work  _ethic_  - being dedicated to her job, wanting to do something productive with her day instead of just...joining all those clubs women in town joined. Still, it hurt his pride a little that she wouldn't let him just take care of her. He made enough to provide for them both and send a little money the boys' way if they needed it. He could take care of her. He just wished she would let him sometimes.  
  
It made sense, he guessed. Carole'd spent a lot of years as a war widow who had to make her way in the world. She didn't know how to sit still and not worry about anything but the house...and without any kids running around, he guessed the house didn't need  _that_  much focus.   
  
Still, a dinner with his wife would be nice every once in awhile.   
  
He hung his jacket on the back of the chair and checked his watch. He'd already missed Red Skelton, and there was no hurry to rush over to the tv and see Petticoat Junction, so he may as well heat up his dinner and try to stay awake long enough to catch the news. He tugged open the fridge to find a wrapped casserole dish still half-full of lasagna from a few nights before and set to reheating his dinner.  
  
He'd always been able to reheat things well. He was pretty sure that was half of how he and Kurt had stayed alive for awhile...especially because Mrs. Jones had a family of her own and there were nights he felt bad keeping her with them instead of with her own children. As long as there was something he could toss in the oven, he could handle dinner.  
  
Kurt would probably disagree with that. There were a few times things burned...or weren't cooked yet. But more or less - and the boy had never starved, so he must have done something right.  
  
Plate in hand, he padded through to the living room. Leaning over to flick on the tv console, Burt sank into his favourite armchair and let out a contented sigh, glad to be off his feet. Long days hadn't bothered him before, but he supposed maybe age would catch up to him eventually. Inevitable, wasn't it? He didn't want to think about the fact that, when his parents had been this age, they'd been grandparents already - that was more than any man's heart needed.  
  
Pushing the thought away, Burt dug into his lasagna as the ending credits rolled - he couldn't help but nod a little in rhythm; the theme song was catchy - and gave way to the solemn music and lighting of CBS Reports. He thought about changing it so he could watch The Fugitive, but his hands and lap were full so he couldn't get up too easily. He shrugged; Dr. Kimble had been chasing the one-armed man for a couple years now, he'd still be chasing him next week. His focus was torn sharply from his dinner as he saw the title in bold white letters on the black screen:  
  
**THE HOMOSEXUALS  
** a cbs reports program  
  
Not really what he thought of as good dinner viewing.  
  
He should change it. He wanted to change it. But something about seeing it literally in front of him in black and white left him curious. He didn't know much about...all that. He knew they were out there, he knew they stayed the hell away from Lima if they knew what was good for them...  
  
...and he knew his son was one.  
  
They hadn't talked about it since that trip to New York. That Christmas- how many years had it been now? Four? There had been other trips out there to see Kurt and Rachel and Mercedes and that weird kid who roomed with them sometimes, and he had helped pay Kurt's way back to Ohio for Christmas a couple different years because buses got expensive and their place already cost more than the whole mortgage, but that word never came up. What was the point? He knew, Kurt knew he knew, and no one really knew what you were supposed to say about it. Kurt didn't seem eager to talk about either, so it just seemed more fair to them both to not really talk it to death.   
  
That worked for him. But it did mean he didn't really know what any of it... _meant_. It was already hard enough to figure out what his kid was up to in the city - more than three questions and the boy started talking in numbers and acronyms and avenues and streets he'd never heard of, and anything about work Burt could forget about because he understand a word Kurt was saying. But all he knew of homosexuals were those Communists McCarthy flushed out of government, the time a whole town in Idaho or somewhere thought there were hundreds of 'em, and men who used to prowl around down by the rail yards back when Burt was a kid. That couldn't be what it meant now, could it?   
  
Those weren't really things he wanted to think about his son... _doing_. So there should be something else.  
  
Mike Wallace looked like he was giving a report on a bunch of serial killers or something and kept spouting off statistics, things like how many Americans thought it should be a crime and who described them as disgusting. Burt set aside his plate, not hungry anymore, anger starting to bubble up. Who were they calling disgusting? That was his kid -  _his son_  - and he'd be damned if anyone said that where he could hear and lived to tell about it. No, he didn't want to think about what homosexuals did, but that was because no one needed to think about their kids being adults like that.   
  
Thinking about Finn bothered him a little less, he guessed, but that was just because he hadn't read Finn bedtime stories. He hadn't known Finn until the kid was already a teenager, when making out was normal. Kurt was...different.  
  
Kurt had always been different.  
  
"The homosexual," Mike Wallace said in that damn know-it-all scandalized tone, "bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. They frequent their own bars and clubs and coffeehouses where they can act out in the way they want to."  
  
Was that something Kurt did? Burt wondered. When he'd been in New York, the kid had barely left the apartment. He'd always been kind of a loner, preferring to stay in his room with magazines and records than running around the neighbourhood with local kids, but Burt had always thought the boy'd grow out of that as he got older. Get somewhere he could have more to do and find himself, find his footing. He wasn't sure Kurt did much better in New York now - he wasn't really sure. He didn't know if he liked the idea of his boy going places like  _that_ , though, like the shadowy places they were showing...  
  
...but, y'know, if it got Kurt out of the apartment...then maybe. If it got him off the couch with that afghan around him...there might be worse things he could be doing with his time, right?   
  
Everyone deserved a bar they could stop at on their way home from a tough day at work. He hadn't had one in decades, but he remembered liking it. Spending an hour with the guys, catching up, then going home to his wife and little kid in time for dinner - what could beat that? Sure, some of them spent too much time there, seemed like they wanted to just stay away from home more than anything, but that had never been him. He had been lucky back then: a woman who made him smile just by walking in the room, a kid who helped around the house without being asked, a thriving shop...  
  
He hadn't gone back to the bar after she'd gotten sick. There was too much to do, and the last thing he wanted to do was waste a single hour, especially once it was clear she wasn't going to come out the other side. And what single father spent the night drinking away instead of trying to take care of his son?  
  
Now he was just out of practice. Evenings felt like a time to go home and relax in front of the tv. Maybe that was where Kurt got it; if he were sitting around his apartment watching something instead of listening to records, would it be that strange?  
  
Some psychoanalyst from something in New York that Burt didn't pretend to recognize started talking. Something about that guy in Indiana who was obsessed with sex, then how homosexuality wasn't genetic, wasn't a hormonal imbalance, but was learned usually before age 3...and that made sense.  
  
Kurt had been like this for...well. As long as he could remember, anyway, but he had really known his son was different when he was 3, about to turn 4. He had spent months dancing around the kitchen after Katherine took him to see that Ziegfeld Follies movie, and he declared for his birthday that all he wanted was dance lessons and sparkly high-heeled dance shoes like proper dancers wore. Burt didn't have to ask around to know that wasn't what any of his buddies' sons had asked for. If it had just been dance class, he could have told himself it was just that his son wanted to be like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly or someone - the boy did have every song in "Anchors Aweigh" memorized - but the shoes...  
  
He had wanted to say something, but what could a man say when his son wanted to dress like that? Tell him no? To stop dancing at all? He had been sure Katherine would stop him anyway if he tried, but even if he'd pushed...his kid liked to dance. That was all there was to it. What was he going to do, make him stop twirling around the living room? Take him outside to teach him catch instead?  
  
He hadn't bought the heels, in the end, but he'd paid for the lessons which had made Kurt plenty excited. From what he could tell, it hadn't gone that well in practice. Kurt had fun, but his wife looked exhausted any time they came back from class, shaking her head and mumbling about other parents in town.   
  
So...that was when it had started, he guessed. And Burt was pretty sure it had just...never stopped.  
  
The police officer from Los Angeles they interviewed next just made him uncomfortable. Burt was pretty sure that Kurt had never even considered doing something lewd in public, so there'd be no reason to worry about his son being arrested, but he didn't like the idea of his boy hanging out with the type of people who might end up in jail. Still, there was something about the way the officer talked that felt like just beneath the cool, law-enforcement exterior was someone who hated everything about folks like that, and that made Burt uneasy.   
  
At least he was in LA, Burt told himself. Kurt was in New York; he was far enough away from this guy to be fine.  
  
The homosexual they interviewed didn't sound anything like his son, which surprised him. He guessed he'd thought they would all sound like Kurt - high-pitched, determined, excited about things...but this man sounded almost forcibly calm, quiet, even, talking about how of course homosexuals favoured laws that protected children and prohibited public sex.  
  
He had to chuckle as he remembered something Kurt had said to him back- had Kurt even been 8 yet? Probably not. It was right after Mrs. Jones had started taking care of him in the afternoons, and some Sunday a couple of guys he knew had come over to listen to the game on the radio, and someone had made some boneheaded comment about the new 'help,' and how Mrs. Jones spoke, and Kurt - all of 7 - had glanced up from his place on the rug with design sketches all around, looked the man square in the eye, and asked, "What did you think she would sound like? Ruby Dandridge?" He'd been too startled to laugh at the time, and to this day he had no idea where Kurt had heard that because Amos and Andy wasn't exactly what they listened to around the house.  
  
But the kid had been right, hadn't he?  
  
Burt had never planned on hiring a colored maid. When he'd put the ad in the paper for a nanny and housekeeper, he had expected, well, someone who looked like his mother. Maybe someone whose own kids had grown up and moved out, who was looking for something to do around the house during the day and wanted to earn a little extra money to plan for retirement or go on a trip with her husband. He'd met a few, asked them questions and everything, but it had only made him feel awkward and alone. His wife hadn't been dead a month and here he was, trying to find someone who could do her job? Someone else to be Kurt's mom? What questions could someone even ask to figure out who would be good for something like that?  
  
Mrs. Jones had arrived exactly 10 minutes early, dressed in a nice-but-not-fancy dress, and from the minute he opened the door she seemed to command authority. He'd never met a negro woman like that, y'know, most kind of scuttled through town or moseyed with their friends, but Mrs. Jones...she looked him right in the eye. "Mr. Hummel? I understand you're looking for a housekeeper and someone to look after your boy." He hadn't know really what to say or what to make of her, and when he paused to find the words, she plowed ahead with her credentials. "I love to cook, my house and garden are always clean, and I have two children of my own - a boy and a girl, both of whom know how to mind their manners and get their homework done without prodding."  
  
He still hadn't known really what to say about the woman on his doorstep, so he had asked the only thing that came to mind. "How old are they?"  
  
That had thrown her for a moment, but with the undeniable grin of a proud parent she had replied, "7 and nearly 9."  
  
"What are they like?" He didn't know how to ask a person about their cooking or cleaning skills - anyone's were bound to be better than his own, but children...he could get a sense of people from that. Not the way Katherine could have - she knew all the mothers at school and how their kids behaved - but at least it was something. The way Mrs. Jones talked about how well her son was doing, top of his class and loved to read, or how her daughter loved music and sang every Sunday at church...clearly she was good at being someone's mother.  
  
No one would ever be Kurt's mom, not like Katherine had been, but Mrs. Jones might be a good substitute, he remembered thinking as they stood on the porch and swapped stories about things their children had done.   
  
She wasn't anything like the colored women in radio shows or Bojangles or anything. She was smarter than he was, for one thing - though that wasn't too hard, he'd never been the smartest guy in town.   
  
So he guessed it made sense that the homosexual on tv didn't sound or look anything like Kurt. Not everyone acted the same.  
  
He wondered if most sounded more like the man on tv or like the boy he knew so well. For that matter, he wondered if Kurt had found anyone else like himself out there. The kid had always been so lonely, and if there were other boys out there who might...well, who might like Gene Kelly or who sang like girls, who cared about clothes and things...  
  
"In the United States, Illinois is the only state where such acts are legal," Mike Wallace informed the audience over more shadowy, blacked-out images of men's backs. "But nationally, as we said earlier, the CBS News public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relations between consenting adults without legal punishment."  
  
Burt shifted, uncomfortable once more as the news piece turned again to that awkward topic. On one hand, he was against permitting homosexual relations anywhere within 100 miles of his son, who should still be living under his roof and no higher than his waist. On the other...  
  
He didn't know how things worked for homosexuals, but he knew they were out there and he knew that...at least in theory...anyone was capable of falling in love with another person. For his son that wasn't going to be a girl, and he understood that - at least, he was pretty sure that was how things worked. He could never quite figure out what went on with Kurt and that Rachel girl, but they were still putting up with each other after a decade so there was love there but not husband-and-wife kind of love. That was fine. But- and he couldn't stress enough how much he didn't want to imagine it ever - being with somebody, necking with them, having sex, all of that was...not just fun, because it was - as long as no one engaging in it was his son - but it was  _important_. There were things a person could feel then that weren't anywhere else but being close to another person.  
  
And sometime...hopefully sometime very far in the future, but sometime nonetheless...he wanted Kurt to be able to experience that. To get to be close to someone. To love someone the way he had been lucky enough to be in love twice in his life.  
  
His son deserved everything good that was out there in the world, and that was one of the best things out there.   
  
He had a right to not want to hear about it, the same way he was sure neither of his boys would ever want to hear about his own marital bed. But Kurt should have a right to do it. And doing it certainly shouldn't have anything to do with the courthouse they were showing on the damned tv.   
  
He pushed himself out of the chair and snatched the plate from the end table, too angry now to eat. Who the hell were they to say his son deserved to be in jail? What had he ever done to another person? And if it was some illness the way they claimed, something that was triggered by the family before the child was 3, then didn't they at least deserve as much compassion as- Burt didn't even know, those poor kids with polio? Even now there were children in the neighbourhood - not as many as there used to be, but a few whose parents hadn't trusted the vaccine - who limped along with large metal braces on their legs. Every year there were benefits for those folks, spaghetti dinners at the elementary school to try to raise money to help with medical bills. No one would have ever said those kids should be in jail because of a mistake their parents had made that let them get sick.   
  
(He would have run right out and gotten the vaccine for Kurt if it had been around at the time. The boy had been so tiny growing up and had gotten case after case of pneumonia and bronchitis the year he was 5, scared all of them almost to death. One reason of many he hadn't tried to shove his son out onto a ball field when he started school the way everyone else had; the last thing his son needed was to run around now that he could finally breathe again. But the vaccine hadn't come out until his son was already practically a teenager, and the doctors said he wasn't in that much danger. Burt wasn't so sure about that, but he'd listened anyway.)  
  
...Was it a mistake he had made? Something he and Katherine had done to make their son like this?   
  
He scraped the lasagna into the trash and set the empty plate in the sink, staring at the windowsill. Was there something they could have done to prevent his son from being like this? A vaccine, a test they could have run earlier, some kind of medication they could have given him so he wouldn't spend his whole life alone and hated by so many people? Could he have shoved his son out to play more, forced him to learn to play catch...was it signing him up for dance lessons that sealed his fate?  
  
With an almost morbid curiosity, Burt poked his head back into the living room. Maybe this would have an answer for him. Even if he didn't like what the answer would probably be, even as sure as he was that the program would tell him that he and Kurt's mom were solely to blame for their son's misery - the way most psychoanalysts did...he needed to know.   
  
He had done the best he could. He had tried as hard as he could to do what would be best for his son - which wasn't easy. Kurt was a more difficult kid than most. He didn't know any other parents whose kids loved to play restaurant on the weekends and try out new recipes all over the counters, or who wanted to make clothes from drapes like Gone with the Wind, or who were particular about 'tea etiquette' - Burt still didn't know what the hell that meant. He didn't know any other parents who had to worry about bullies the way he did; most kids got picked on, and he had done his share while he was in school, but it was  _different_  with Kurt. Had he-  
  
"...-the result of an absent father and an overbearing mother. The homosexual will begin to emulate-"  
  
Burt almost laughed. If that wasn't the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. Of all the reasons his son could have been different, that theory was the furthest thing from the truth. He hadn't been perfect, and running the shop meant sometimes he had to stay late or go in early, but he had always been there. Always. He had said goodnight to his son every single night until the kid had moved across three states. And Katherine was loving but never overbearing, and for most of Kurt's life the closest he'd had to a mother figure was Mrs. Jones who was the furthest thing from smothering - not cold, but independence-minded he guessed. And that had always fit Kurt: strong, independent, chin-up;  _nothing_  like the picture they were painting of the weak sissy who clung to his mother's apron strings long past the age where it would be appropriate.  
  
What the hell did these folks know about homosexuals, anyway?  
  
Sure, maybe they had their studies and their whatever-the-hell-ologists, but they didn't know his son. They didn't know a damned thing about the persistent kid who refused to stop learning to ride a two-wheeler no matter how many times he fell, who spent hours at that damned sewing machine trying to get things just right. They had no idea that there was a young man out there who could walk through a world of cruel people like he owned the place, who had picked up and gone to a new city on his own practically the day he turned 18 and had never looked back. Those men on tv might have experts, but those ivory tower book-jockeys had never met Kurt.   
  
And they didn't know a damn thing about the boy he'd raised.  
  
Burt chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he rinsed the plate, then padded back to the living room and clicked over to ABC. At least The Fugitive was honest about being fiction.


End file.
